Method of making and finishing stockings



May 20, 1947. w. LARKIN 2,420,960

METHOD OF MAKING AND FINISHING STOCKINGS Filed March 5, 1946 Patented May 20, 1947 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE Fidelity Machine Company, Inc., Philadelphia, Pa., a corporation of Pennsylvania Application March 5, 1946, Serial No. 652,024

1 Claim. 1

This invention relates to hosiery, and particularly to full length stockings for women, although the invention is applicable to hosiery of shorter lengths, including half hose for men.

The invention also relates to a method for making and finishing hosiery and is primarily concerned with hosiery composed of synthetic yarns, especially nylon.

Usually, ladies full length stockings are provided with what is known as a turned welt, i. e., the upper end of the stocking fabric is folded and the free edge thereof is secured to the body of the stocking on a circumferentially extending line approximately four inches below the top open end of the finished stocking, whereby the turned welt is composed of two-ply fabric.

For evening wear, under gowns of thin silk and other light weight fabrics, the double ply welt shows up as a wide band on the wearers leg, when sittin with the outer gown lying loosely over the wearers legs above the knees. This is an undesirable characteristic of ladies full length stockings and one of the objects of the present invention is to provide a single ply welt which will eliminate this undesirable efiect.

Single ply welts are not new per se, but in most instances, they have been formed of ribbed fabric which lends thickness to the welt fabric and therefore is little, if any, better than the two-ply welt, under the circumstances noted above.

The present invention therefore is concerned with a non-ribbed, single-ply, plain fabric welt of substantially the same thickness, etc., as the fabric of which the leg portion of the stocking is composed.

Knitted fabrics, and particularly those of the light weight finer gages, are subject to curling at the edge and this condition, in the case of sheer hosiery, produces a problem in finishing stockings provided with the single-ply plain fabric welt of the present invention.

In the case of nylon hose, for example, the stockings, after the knitting and seaming or looping operations are completed, pass through what is known as a preboarding operation, wherein the stockings are applied to shaping boards and treated to set the yarn so that the stockings will hold a predetermined shape.

After preboarding, the stockings go through the regular dyeing and finishing process and are again placed on stocking forms or boards for drying.

Thus, it will be seen that the nylon stockings require two distinct boarding operations and when the welt is of the single-ply, plain fabric type, the difficulties encountered by the curling of the open top edge of the stockin are accordingly multiplied. The edges of the open ends of the stockings cannot be made to lie flatly, but persist in curling around the top of the finished products. Such curlingusually involves a band of approximately one-quarter to one-half inch in width of the fabric adjacent the upper edge of the welt.

It has been found that, if a circumferential band of surplus fabric having a width in excess of the width of the band normally subject to curling, is detachably formed on the open end of the single-ply welt of a stocking during the knitting of the stocking, and is permitted to remain on the stocking throughout the seaming, looping, preboarding, dyeing, finishing, and final drying operations, and is removed after and not until the final drying of the stocking has been completed, either while the stocking still remains on the final drying form or after it has been removed therefrom, the top edge of the single-ply welt will not thereafter curl and will lie fiatly with the rest of the stocking in packaging, display, subsequent handling, and in use; the reason for which is that the curl which normally would occur in the single-ply welt develops in the surplus band well beyond what eventually constitutes the open end edge of the welt and the open edge of the welt is thereby relieved of the tension and other inherent conditions which normally cause the area of a knitted fabric adjacent a free edge thereof to curl.

The non-curling of the open edge of the single welt stocking, when the welt is formed of yarn composed of any of the synthetics which require setting, such as the preboarding of nylon hose, is further accentuated by the setting of the yarn during the preboarding operation.

In the accompanying drawing:

Fig. 1 illustrates a full length ladies stocking with the surplus fabric still in place after the stocking has been finished; and

Fig. 2 shows the stocking after the surplus fabric has been removed.

The stocking A, for the purpose of this disclosure, may be either of the fiat knit fullfashioned single unit type, or two machine type, or of the tubular knit type.

The stocking A is provided with a welt B of single-ply fabric and may have any desired number of non-run courses or areas formed therein with one of such areas CI formed where the leg A and welt B are joined, with another of stitches G which affords a clear line for disconnecting the surplus fabric E from the welt B The foot F, leg A, and welt B are preferably formed of yarn of the higher more expensive grades composed of natural or synthetic fibres or filaments, including nylon, while the surplus fabric E is preferably composed of a cheaper grade of yarn, such as cotton.

Due to the fact that the shape of a stocking composed of nylon must be set by the preboarding operation, nylon hosiery may be readily knit on circular knitting machines and shaped after closing of the toe, by the setting treatment commonly referred to as preboarding.

In the present instance, the stockings disclosed in Figs. 1 and 2 are preferably knit continuously in tubular form on a circular hosiery knitting machine, including the toe and heel pockets fl and i2 and the leg A and the welt B, with surplus fabric E intermediate the toe of one stocking unit and the welt of the next.

The units may be separated by cutting across the intermediate surplus fabric, leaving one portion thereof attached to the toe pocket structure at one end of each unit and another portion thereof attached to the edge of the welt structure at the opposite end of the unit.

In such instances, the surplus fabric E may be attached to the welt D in the well-known manner commonly used in joining welts to toes of stockings knit in tubular string form, and including a loose course of stitches and a pull thread associated therewith and adapted to be cut and pulled out to separate completely the welt of one unit from the toe of a, preceding unit, and forming the welt with a non-raveling edge thereon.

The separated units are then closed across the top of the toe in the usual manner, as by looping, after the surplus fabric attached to the open toe structure is raveled down to the points of the looping machine on which the sticthes of the toe unit have been topped in the usual manner.

After the toe has been closed, each stocking unit is placed smoothly on and in contact with a shaping board. The portion of the unit including the welt B and an adjacent portion of the surplus fabric E will lay fiat and smooth against the board, while the area adjacent the free edge of the surplus fabric E will curl in the usual manner, but the surplus fabric will be of sufiicient width to prevent the curl from creeping back to or across the line of division G between the welt B and surplus fabric E.

After the boarded stocking has been processed to set the stocking to the shape of the board, it is removed from the board and goes through the usual dyeing and finishing process, after which it is placed on the drying form for final drying in the usual manner.

When placed on the final drying form, the surplus fabric E of the unit functions in exactly the same manner as hereinbefore described in connection with the stocking unit, including the surplus fabric E still intact, being placed on the board for the setting process.

After the stocking unit is finally dried, the surplus fabric E is disconnected from the welt B of the finished stocking along the line G. As a matter of convenience, the elongated stitch course G is continued beyond a one full circumference to provide an overlap H, as shown in Fig. 1, and giving a well defined area wherein the draw thread may be readily cut to complete the severance of the surplus fabric E from the welt B; and to provide the decorative non-raveling edge D on the welt.

I claim:

The process which consists in knitting a stocking unit to include a single ply welt, detachably interknitting a band of surplus fabric to a terminal edge of said welt, boarding said unit on a stocking form with adjacent areas of said welt and said band lying flatly against said form, proc essing the boarded unit to set it to the shape ofsaid, form, removing said unit from said form,

dyeing and finishing said unit, replacing said unit on a drying form with said adjacent areas again in fiat contact with the form, drying the unit on the last said form, and subsequently detaching said surplus fabric from said welt along said terminal edge of the latter.

WALTER LARKIN.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 2,044,966 Baugh June 23, 1936 2,119,663 I Botts June 7, 1938 2,157,119 v Miles May 9, 1939 

